Seasonal Tips for Your Pond in August / September
After a rather windy and rainy summer, it's more important this year than ever to ensure your pond is in good condition as we head into the shorter days and longer nights!
In this guide, the AllPondSolutions team summarises some of the key tips to ensure your pond is ready for the autumn season.
Prepping Ponds for September
The first job is to ensure your pond plants are well-groomed - it's likely that plants have grown over the summer but will start to die back as the warmer weeks come to an end.
Essential jobs include:
- Removing any dead leaves
- Cutting back overgrown pond plants
- Clearing out leaves from the water
A Pond Net makes the job a whole lot easier, or you can use a handy Pond Skimmer to keep on top of floating leaves.
If any of your pond plants are looking a little worse for wear, it's also an excellent time to consider upgrading your Pond Plant Food to keep your foliage healthy throughout the winter.
Clearing Pond Pumps and Filters for Autumn
Next, you'll want to ensure your air pond pump and pond filters are working well and replace any Filter Media that's becoming worn or broken.
Many pond owners reduce the flow through their pond filters as the water temperature falls, ensuring the filters are disconnected and cleaned as the fish go into hiding for the colder weather.
Your air pond pump can be left in place until late autumn, when it's best to ensure the deeper parts of your pond are left undisturbed.
Once you lift the air pond pump out, make sure to clean the intake and filters and replace any worn parts ready for the new spring ahead!
Assessing Pond Water Quality
Finally, a big autumn pond maintenance job is to check on the water quality.
Even the best pond filters can't guard against 100% of unwanted chemicals, and it's essential to ensure there are no harmful nitrates left in the water.
Leaving poor quality water in situ can cause algae blooms in the spring, so a simple pond water test kit will quickly assess whether there are any problems you need to treat.
While it's always a little sad waving goodbye to summer, with these crucial tasks, you can ensure your pond is in excellent condition and will be an asset to your garden when the sunshine rolls around again.